AES Power plant site lead owner Pustilnikov talks of Redondo Beach in interview

by Garth Meyer

Leo Pustilnikov, lead owner of the closed AES power plant in Redondo Beach, spoke to the Beverly Hills Courier newspaper Sept. 8 and was asked about the situation here. 

The 51-acre plant site remains stagnant as ligation plays out, related to the ownership group’s 2023 bankruptcy filing, and its challenge to the Redondo Beach state-mandated housing plan, known as a Housing Element. 

Pustilnikov contends that it was filed too late by the city to be in effect. 

Without a state-certified Housing Element, he could use “Builder’s Remedy” to move ahead on desired development of the AES site, despite any city objections. 

Many Redondo Beach representatives have spoken in favor of turning the site, or the vast majority of it, into a park. 

Redondo Beach is currently in the midst of six separate lawsuits filed by Pusilnikov’s ownership group(s).

Below is an excerpt of the Sept. 8 interview, regarding Redondo Beach and housing.

“At the end of the day, I like real estate and residential real estate because everyone needs to be housed,” Pustilnikov said. “I’m a firm believer that housing is as close to the universal right as we have, and that people shouldn’t be left to suffer on the streets.”

Pustilnikov, who is not yet 40, notes that his background as an immigrant from Odessa (he came here as a young child) has also shaped him.

“You have to realize, even though I was born in what was then the USSR, what is now Ukraine, my nationality when I lived there was neither Russian nor Ukrainian. It was Jewish. So even there I was separated, and even there we were discriminated against. We were a minority. So here you have the same issues where people that have try to say, ‘You know what? You can’t do this here because this is ours and not yours.’ I grew up with that, and now I have an opportunity to fight it. And my philosophy is, if I’m not going to do it, I don’t know how many others will.”

Easy Reader asked City Attorney Joy Ford for a comment on the interview or the lawsuits.

“I am not able to comment on a pending case that is discussed during privileged conversations with the mayor and city council in closed session,” Ford said.